Once Upon a Time in America [R]

After 35 years in hiding, former gangster David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson returns to New York after receiving a strange invitation to a party. Still grieving over the death of his best friends and former gang members, Noodles cannot help but reminisce about his wayward life from the days of being a petty hood in the 1920s, his adulthood and involvement in underworld crime during Prohibition, and finally the fatal event that made him lose his friends. His curiosity is further piqued when his gang’s million dollars stash gets mysteriously moved and replaced with newspapers headlining a corrupted politician. 

It’s probably the longest film to grace screens since Gone With the Wind, but that downer aside, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America is a large step away from the spaghetti westerns he was famous for and sits as a beautifully crafted drama, even fairytale, that may move along at a continuous slow-pace but nevertheless tells the story of a captivating life. Is it the greatest gangster epic ever made? No, but there’s a poeticism an beauty to this movie that somehow keeps you entranced. 

After 35 years in hiding, former gangster David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson returns to New York after receiving a strange invitation to a party. Still grieving over the death of his best friends and former gang members, Noodles cannot help but reminisce about his wayward life from the days of being a petty hood in the 1920s, his adulthood and involvement in underworld crime during Prohibition, and finally the fatal event that made him lose his friends. His curiosity is further piqued when his gang’s million dollars stash gets mysteriously moved and replaced with newspapers headlining a corrupted politician. 

The brunt of the film is told in flashback, but you don’t really get this until after the first 10-20 minutes. There is one scene that I found really fascinating, where the audience are only clued into it being a memory by the constant ringing of a telephone. We jump through three major time frames: the 1920s where Noodles and his mates were kids on the streets doing petty crimes, the 1930s during the days of Prohibition where they were hired hands and ran their own club, and the 1960s where Noodles is trying to discover who the mysterious invitation-sender is. A montage of multiple little stories, like the rivers that make up a sea, this movie takes on the tone of a grittier sort of fairytale where they may be no dragons and happy endings, but there’s a quest and challenges. The one difference is that the heroes do not grow or change, but remain rooted in their methods. The central character conflict/balance between the two leads, Noodles and Max, is beautiful with Noodles being reserved and prone to depression and Max being the hot-headed and ambitious other. 

The poetic and simple shots are all set against a beautiful score by Ennio Morriccone, who somehow manages to make pan-pipes work in the Jazz Age as well as do a lovely and highly romantic version of the Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ that’s enough to bring a lump to the throat. 

Starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams, Tuesday Weld, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Danny Aiello, William Forsythe, James Hayden, Darlanne Fluegel, Larry Rapp, Dutch Miller, Robert Harper, and Richard Bright, Once Upon a Time in America is a beautiful, albeit long, slow-moving, and sometimes uninteresting film filled with action, friendship, drama, romance, comedy, and betrayal. It’s by no means a real cracker of a movie, but it makes you feel something: melancholy, empathy for the character, hatred towards horrid people, whatever, and it’s beautifully-crafted and will stay with you.